The 10 Best Mo Willems Books (and one to pre-order!)

Homeschool / Parenting
mo willems books

If you only know the Elephant & Piggie side of Mo Willems, you are missing some of the best Mo Willems books! While Elephant & Piggie books introduced us to Mo Willems, we have discovered so many of his lesser known books that we love even more than beloved Elephant & Piggie.

If you have kids and have never read a book by Mo Willems, you are about to discover books that will turn even the most reluctant young reader into an absolute book fanatic!

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How to Raise Kids who Love Math

Homeschool / Parenting
homeschool math, how to help kids love math

Most American parents know how important math is. They also know that we’re behind almost every country when it comes to math scores in our schools. How could the media let us forget it?

The powers that be in public education keep trying to change that: different curriculum, more testing, more drill, more homework, new approaches. Is it working? I guess we’ll know ten years from now.

While we know how important math is, a whole lot of American parents just plain don’t like math. Good old math: you can’t live with it, can’t live without it, right?

But it doesn’t have to be that way. Will every kid be a math rockstar? Probably not. Will math in all its forms come easily to every child? No. But I really believe that almost every child can appreciate math*, and by changing the way we approach math in our homes during their earliest ages, some kids just might love it.

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14 Easy Ways any Parent can Teach Geography

Homeschool / Parenting
homeschool geography without curriculum

Geography is one of those subjects that can easily get pushed to the back burner day after day, in public schools and homeschools alike. After putting so much effort into math, reading, writing, and maybe science and history, finding the energy to get to subjects like geography can be a real challenge for any teacher.

Studies consistently show that U.S. Students are terrible at geography (source). But raising kids who have a good grasp of geography doesn’t have to be hard – promise! Any parent can use these ideas to raise globally minded kids, ensuring that they have an excellent grasp of geography, homeschooling or not. 

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How to Choose the Perfect Read-Aloud by asking just One Question

Homeschool
how to choose read-alouds homeschool

Choosing the perfect read-aloud can feel like an awful guessing game. You do your research, get all the best reading treasuries, and listen to “the experts” who give you extensive lists of all the books you should read to your kids.

Some are great, but some of them are dreadful flops. They bore you, for heaven’s sake! No wonder your 7 year-old is yawning and distracted. You can forget having that meaningful conversation and connection you dreamed about.

Still, you persevere with your list, determined to finish every single one just because you should. Can I tell you something? My year started with that same fierce determination, but multiple “just ok” books later, I realized something had to change. I wanted to inspire my child to love reading and build meaningful connections that lasted.

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How to Homeschool with Toddlers

Homeschool
how to homeschool with toddlers, how to homeschool with babies, homeschooling with toddlers

How to homeschool with toddlers. Ha! I laugh even as I type the title. I’ve read my share of blog posts on the subject. There’s a variety of opinions and approaches out there. So much depends on your homeschooling style and the personalities of you, your older children, and your toddler.

The personalities in our family, along with gender mix (girl, boy, boy, boy), create an overall dynamic that made homeschooling in this season challenging to begin with. And then baby grew into a toddler, making homeschooling even more difficult. Babies are the easy part, in my opinion.

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How to Homeschool Preschool: 21 things that count as school

Homeschool
unschooling, how to homeschool the little years

Like many others who start homeschooling who have no prior experience, I once thought of school as just workbooks and textbooks and sitting at a desk (kitchen table) for hours. I way overcomplicated homeschooling the little years.

This style of homeschooling just didn’t work for us. I hated it, and my daughter hated it (the only one in formal “school”). I especially hated the constant interruptions from the younger ones all day long.

In order to make homeschooling work with this many little kids in this season of life, I had to redefine what “learning” looked like. Now, instead of feeling guilty for not doing all those workbooks, I’ve realized that all the things we do now are super legitimate learning. These things actually allow my kids to surpass their grade level learning and be in school every day.

Kids are wired to learn, to love learning in fact, if we only get out of their way and let them.

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Why we don’t use “school” to teach hard work

Homeschool / Parenting

Driving to the grocery store one evening, I tried to explain to my kids why daddy is so tired all the time. You see, my husband recently reentered the field of engineering after a six year hiatus.

For him, every day comes with a new set of challenges. He is re-learning constantly. It’s not re-learning the same things either. Each day, he encounters new programs, new problems, new state regulations, and he’s been at this for three months straight.

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Relaxed Homeschooling (A Day in the Life with a 7, 5, 3, and 1 year old)

Homeschool
relaxed homeschool. homeschool lifestyle

Inspired by the Day in the Life series over at Simple Homeschool, I’m sharing what a typical day looks like around here.

For all you moms out there considering homeschooling, I hope this encourages you that homeschooling is a lifestyle, and learning happens from the moment kids wake up until the minute their heads hit the pillow (literally).

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5 Ways We Teach Language Arts without a Curriculum

Homeschool
simple homeschool, affordable homeschooling, how to teach language arts, homeschool without curriculum

You don’t need an expensive curriculum to teach Language Arts in your homeschool.

When I first started homeschooling, I was so tempted to purchase a curriculum called All About Reading and All About Spelling to teach Language Arts. Each level cost more than $160 combined! With four levels each (this didn’t even include handwriting or writing!), I would have spent more than $600, and that’s just for one kid. 

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Bullet Journaling for Homeschool Moms

Homeschool
bullet journal homeschool, bullet journaling for homeschool moms, bullet journal for homeschoolers

Do you love planners like I did before I discovered the bullet journal? Perhaps you have several sitting in a drawer somewhere because you try a few different ones every year just to find one that fits.

Judging by the fact that you have several half (or completely) unused planners, you are still searching for the perfect planner to meet all your planning needs as a busy homeschool mom.

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